Erin Claussen

Toledo Revival started out as an Instagram account and was supposed to eventually become a blog to document the updating and decorating of the 1923 Tudor Revival that Erin and her husband Greg purchased when they relocated to Toledo, Ohio along with their little girl and cat in the spring of 2015. But before that blog ever launched, the meaning of Toledo Revival started to shift. Enamored with Toledo's incredible historical architecture, Erin began to look for ways to practice and advocate for historic preservation as a tool for redevelopment and revitalization in her adopted city. And she started to become a little obsessed with a 1900 Italianate commercial building at the south end of downtown, sporting a sweet old sign at its front corner reading "Hotel Royal", that she passed frequently on her way from her home on the south side to downtown. In January of 2017 with the purchase of the Hotel Royal property, she launched Toledo Revival, not as house rehab and design blog, but as a real estate redevelopment and historic preservation and cultural resource management consulting company.

Trained as an archaeologist, Erin of Toledo Revival has worked in cultural resource management since receiving her MA in Anthropology from Western Michigan University in 2010. What does a "cultural resource manager" do? She helps people deal with old things that they are either required by law to deal with, or in some cases, just want to deal with: archaeological resources, buildings, collections, documents. Facilitating their recordation and preservation, putting them in their larger contexts, narrating their stories.

Erin is also a huge design nerd. She has long been obsessed with interiors and gardening. The Tudor Revival in Toledo is she and her husband's fourth 50+ year old dwelling. Steeped in construction and building maintenance from a young age thanks to her Dad's occupation, she had absorbed much through osmosis and has continued to learn the ins and outs of rehabilitation over her last dozen years of hands-on experience turning old houses into homes. Finally, when she gets the chance, she revels in the thrill of the hunt, scouting for diamonds-in-the-rough at estate sales and thrift shops to furnish her own home and to pass on to others to enjoy.